Arrived In Bournemouth - Got My Pass

Just spotted a warning re delays around passes on the party website, but I managed to get mine. Finger in the air suggests 20 - 30 percent of passes are not ready for collection which if true is a disgrace. If you see someone with Conservatives Abroad - Prague written on their pass, that'll be me.

Should be a hectic Conference - there are 2000 more delegates than last year.

V4

Sounds like a boy-band doesn’t it? In this case it's the acronym for the regional grouping of the four Visegrad countries namely Poland, Czech, Hungary and Slovakia. Their combined population exceeds the UK and their combined land mass is similar to France. Up until now, it has been perceived that each of these countries has ploughed its own furrow in the EU field. Following a summit of all four Presidents in Central Bohemia on September 15 this looks likely to change.

Drawing on a shared geography and recent experience with Communism and EU membership, it’s not surprising that they have shared goals. Referring to Europe, the region’s longest-serving statesmen, Czech President, Vaclav Klaus (a member of ODS) said (and I paraphrase)

“All four V4 Presidents think it makes sense to formulate positions, agree on them in advance and present them jointly and thus more loudly, where necessary”.

The other leaders expressed similar sentiments. The Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic (not related to Klaus despite the resemblance) added that the group could even expand its scope drawing in Austria, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. I think this increased regional co-operation makes sense and could be a good sign for the Conservatives who should be working behind the scenes to gain more partners for our 2009 grouping. Mr Cameron, are you watching?

Chirac Ruins My Day

Bucharest is holding a Francophone Summit. I heard this was happening, but thought it was a minor event. It’s not. Securing a hotel wasn’t a straightforward task and the city seems to have gone Gallic for now. Not that I have a problem with that. The problem is the traffic.

The 15km road from the airport and the city is busy enough at the best of times in Bucharest. Today, parts of this road were down to a single lane to create a free lane for convoys of dignitaries. Amongst them was Jacques Chirac. He must have been in one of the top-of-the-range cars that glided by as we stop-started on our 90 minute journey at a stately 10kph average.

You may be surprised to learn that a Francophone Summit is being held in Romania, but Romanian is the only Eastern European language with Latin roots and has many French speakers. These days the inevitable and continuing rise of English more than threatens this tradition – so I suppose Romania can be considered a key battleground of the Francophone cause. This is even more relevant to the French-speaking world as Romania is now just a rubber-stamp from joining the EU in January 2007. This is one instance of war in which the French troops aren’t yet ready to lay down their circumflexes.

Note - According to a 2002 EC poll, 86% of people in the 13 countries then on the EU waiting list regarded English as one of the two most useful languages to speak and French gained a paltry 17%.

Beautifully Orchestrated Smoke & Mirrors

Initially Cherie's "that's a lie" comment was gleefully reported as a moment of madness. This was quickly followed by the naff official line that she had actually said "Can I get by?".

As spotted by Croydonian, her "off-the-cuff" remark was not a single "unguarded moment" - she was doing the rounds.

Then TB weighs in at with an admittedly humorous, but well-prepared joke, which basically says that yes all the sentiments reported are essentially accurate.

"At least I don't have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door."

I am now persuaded that this whole episode was orchestrated. Not only was Brown's speech completely overshadowed (I understand that coverage was interrupted for the Cherie story), but Blair has managed to portray Brown as an unattractive liar without lifting a finger. I look forward to further lukewarm endorsements for Brown from Blair emphasing his experience (age), determination (bloody-mindedness) and serious approach (lack of charisma or humour). Isn't politics predictable?

We Won't Be Fooled Again

5,000 to 13,000 per annum was the number of EU migrants expected as a result of EU expansion in May 2004. It was a concerted lie. Bulgaria, Romania, the Beeb and our government are conspiring in a lie again. See this article.

Back in the real world, Bulgaria is about twice as poor as Poland and Romania twice as poor again. Most estimates place average monthly earnings in Romania at about £100. If you assume a 40 hour working week the average hourly rate is about 15% of the UK's minimum wage so just because unemployment is low in Romania doesn't mean that they won't come to the UK in droves.

I am visiting Bucharest from Wednesday to Friday, where I'll be talking to the locals.

Conservatives Abroad On The Net

Conservatives Abroad has 35 branches internationally.

Due to our location and ongoing interest in UK politics, CA members probably use the internet more than most. We do have a significant web presence whether to support branch activities or personal political blogging.

This site for the Conservatives of Javea, Costa Blanca, is absolutely terrific. They have around 75 members and the Conservative branch is clearly at the heart of the community. Pictured is an IDS visit in May of this year. The photo gallery and the weblinks are great and the chairman has started to use a blog to publicise their events.

Washington DC Tories site is worth a brief visit. They appear to be very active and able to attract high profile speakers. Liam Fox is visiting in October (ed. Wouldn't mind seeing you being a bit more prominent on the UK political scene, Liam).

It's no secret that one of the founders of the successful Prison Works website is Alan Drew, an expat based in Switzerland, who also has his own engaging (and regularly updated) political website.

Who have I missed?

Labour Conference - Smoke & Mirrors Forecast

I am intrigued by the Labour Party Conference in Manchester brought to you in association with Wal-mart, Nestle and Murdoch. As a result of Labour inefficiency (or efficiency?) poor Old Bob Piper (and others) didn't get his police clearance in time, leading to an unfortunate queueing incident which he "mentions" today in his blog. No such problems for Labour's offical blogger, conference virgin Jonathan Roberts.

"So, arriving at Manchester Piccadilly circa 2pm, I was instantly impressed. A sea of eager staff in yellow jackets guiding you (ed. singular) from station to tram to G-Mex to hotel."

JR has plumped for two to three posts a day and I've just read his first five. In his opening post he dampens the idea that he is in competition with other Labour blogs - which is pretty evident as he's only had one comment so far from some anon who's asking whether they can just walk into the Conference off the street (I wonder if this was posted to wind Bob up specifically). Despite the lack of encouragement from his comrades I particularly enjoyed the following excerpt from post number four -

"After a few glasses of wine, the rumours started. "The PM's on his way", "The PM will be hear in 10" and so on."

Clearly, distinguishing between hear and here gets tricky after a few drinks, but I thought the fact that TB's on the way was a bit more than a rumour. Is this apparent lack of proof-read a deliberate ploy or have they simply decided that nobody will read it?

I make no claim to design guru status, but it's a bit disappointing that JR is using the same template as Political Hack.

Anyway, enough background noise. After the Wolfgang incident last year, I fully expect the NuLabour spin machine to do their usual "smoke and mirrors" over the next few days. Let me know what you spot.

Political Joke Du Jour

As I am 'aving a big weekend, I don't have much posting time - Here's a lazy post - a joke.

Tony Blair was visiting a primary school and he visited one of the classes. They were in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.

The teacher asked the Prime Minister if he would like to lead the discussion on the word "tragedy". So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a "tragedy".

One little boy stood up and offered: "If my best friend, who lives on a farm is playing in the field & a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a 'tragedy'". "No," said Blair, "that would be an accident." A little girl raised her hand: "If a school bus carrying fifty children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a Tragedy". "I'm afraid not," explained the Prime Minister, "that's what we would call a great loss."

The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Tony searched the room.
"Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of Tragedy?"

Finally, at the back of the room, a small boy raised his hand...In a quiet voice he said: "If the Air plane carrying you and Mrs Blair was struck by a friendly fire" missile & blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy."

"Fantastic!" exclaimed Tony Blair. "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?"

"Well," says the boy "it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss and it probably wouldn't be a f*cking accident either!"

Rattled

I must check my horoscope - it's been a funny day. There's been some poor, poor nonsense posted on several Labour sites to which I had to respond. In all three cases the blogger has responded to my reasonable comments by throwing their toys out of the pram.

Check here and here where the blogger decided to dedicate a new post to fisking my comment or here where Jo Salmon insinuated my post was spam and kindly told me where in her archives I should have posted my comment.

One word - rattled.

Pay Peanuts?

The Immigration & Nationality Directorate is looking for HEO Accountants (what the hell is HEO?) for Croydon and Heathrow.

The advertisement paints a realistic picture of the challenges and obliquely alludes to some of the recent scandals.

"With the number of people seeking to enter the country rising dramatically in recent years, it’s our role to monitor and control entry while considering applications and putting measures in place to detect and deter abuse of the system. The responsibility is huge, and meeting it demands the very highest standards of financial management. This is where you enter the equation. Monitoring and managing budgets worth up to £400million, you’ll deliver key support to business support units etc etc."

The salary range for these complex and demanding roles in the high-cost South East?
£24,543 - £35,727 + C£1,000 London allowance. I’ve heard of the public sector ethic, but this takes the piss. University graduates start on more.